


And No One Can Talk to a Horse

by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky technically isn't a cannibal, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluffy Ending, Gratuituous Black Stallion references, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kelpie Bucky Barnes, Kelpies, M/M, Mild Gore, Minor Identity Porn, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Water, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, but he does eat a dude, half-merman Steve Rogers, he's a bad dude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-01-12 02:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18437321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monkeygreen/pseuds/leveragehunters
Summary: Kelpies were killers. They lived in the water, drowned anyone who came too close. Ate them, most of the time. It was reflex not choice, like the kick that follows a hammer hitting a knee, because kelpies were no more aware than a wave or a wildfire.Hydra knew about kelpies. It was why they'd come up with their brilliant plan to capture one and turn it into an assassin. But like so many plans that seemed good on paper it came with unintended consequences—in Hydra's case, the unintended consequences wereBuckyand no more Hydra.Steve didn't know that. Even as a sometime Shield consultant, he had no way of knowing any of that. Which meant when the sleek black horse surged up out of the water anddidn'tkill him, the only answer he could give to, "Why?" was, "I don't know."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write a kelpie AU for awhile now, so I'm pretty happy to be putting this out :D but I just want to drop a few warnings here. I've harvested from a bunch of kelpie mythology to construct my own, but it does include the drowning and eating people part and Bucky is a kelpie so, *points at tags*. The fic also has a brief reference to attempted suicide and a brief moment of child endangerment, both averted. 
> 
> Title from the Mr Ed theme song (and I genuinely apologise if I've earwormed you with it).

_"All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large."_  
-Lois McMaster Bujold, _Mirror Dance_

 

The water of the lake rippled, flashing silver and gold under the bright sun. Beautiful. Seductive. Ruffled by the breeze, it lapped at Bucky's knees, curling around his calves, inviting and cool and he took one small step forward and—

"Hey!" The nasal voice cut through his momentary lapse like teeth ripping into flesh.

He turned and the short man in the garish flowery shorts and equally garish shirt frowned at him. Maybe it was a scowl. Probably it was a scowl. Bucky wasn't great at human expressions. Whatever it was, he wasn't happy. "You going to get our boat ready sometime this century, or what?"

 _Be polite to the customers, Bucky,_ Bob had told him, and Bob had given him this job, so Bucky did his best. Even if sometimes it didn't quite work. Like now, smiling wide with all his teeth—it _was_ a smile, it counted as polite, even if it made the man pale and back away.

"It's right here." He gestured at the green two-seater pedal boat, its colour faded from years in the sun. "You need life vests," he added as a woman in shorts and a shirt of equal garishness wandered over. "You don't want to drown." He picked up the vests from the pedal boat's seat and handed them over, staring until they put them on.

The woman gave him a smile as he held the boat still for them to climb in and said, "Thank you."

He returned her smile, and this time his was small, no teeth, friendly, and she gave him a little grin. When they were settled, he gave the boat a push, splashing out into the water, half-envious as they trundled their way towards the lake's centre, her laughter and his grumbling carrying back to him.

The other half, the half that wasn't envy, that was deeper and darker and bloodier, was under his control.

Hydra had taught him that. They hadn't meant to, but he'd learned anyway.

 

*   *   *

 

How Hydra figured out that legendary creatures actually existed was anyone's guess. The idea to capture and repurpose one was, like so many plans with unintended consequences, probably arrived at by committee.

On paper, it made sense. Legendary creatures were exactly that: legendary. Almost no one believed in them, and the ones who did generally fell on a sliding scale from odd to genuinely mentally unwell. Legendary creatures were faster and tougher than humans, some were next to impossible to kill, and they had powers and abilities no human could duplicate and very few could defend against (if they even thought to, given the creatures were, well, legendary).

Like so many plans that looked good on paper, it had a few hiccups. The primary one being that, in addition to being _legendary_ , legendary creatures were _creatures_.

They weren't animals, which could, for the most part, be reliably trained. They weren't humans, with a known psychology and physiology that could, for the most part and depending on the lengths to which someone was prepared to go, be reliably brainwashed and controlled.

They were something different. More than animals but less than human. Deadly but unaware. Special tactics were necessary. For the most part, these involved the application of force. Electricity was especially effective.

They picked the kelpie because, unlike some legendary creatures, it was a simple killer. All kelpies were—there was nothing special about the one they chose; it was just the easiest to get to. Kelpies were killers, shapeshifters with a gift for staying hidden, and they ate the body, everything but the entrails.

To Hydra, these were highly desirable traits.

 

*   *   *

 

His lake had been quiet, peaceful. Secluded. Almost no one came there, because they knew it was a kelpie's lake, warnings passed from generation to generation. Sometimes people, usually children, came close to the shore—close, but never to the lake's edge—and he rose up to watch them, a black shadow of a horse, half-concealed by the water, but they kept their distance and eventually ran away, their fear an acrid taste in the air.

Sometimes strangers came, strangers who laughed at the warnings they were given. Strangers who dove in to swim in the lake or walked its edges and reached to pat the pretty horse even though they'd been told not to. Even though they'd been warned. Strangers who never left the lake, apart from a little pile of entrails on the shore.  

Then They'd come and trapped him and hurt him and he didn't understand. They put him in a tiny lake, far from the sun and the sky, a lake with hard walls and bitter water. When They came to the edges of his new lake and he tried to catch Them, tried to drown Them and eat Them, They punished him for it.  

He didn't understand.

They hurt him until he changed, horse to human-shape so he looked like Them, using long poles that sparked and smelled like lightning and _hurt_. They forced him to dress in clothes, stiff and black and made from the skin of dead things, forced him to use weapons and learn to hurt people with them, people who had never come to the edge of his lake.

They took him out into the world and made him kill, but They wouldn't let him kill the ones who came to the edge of his hard and bitter lake. The people They made him kill hadn't come to the edge of Their lake. They made him go to other people's lakes—not actual lakes, but it was the same, somehow, even when it was nowhere near water—and kill them and that was, that was…

For the first time ever in all the time he'd been alive, he wondered why. Why kill this one and not that one? It was the first word he spoke to Them. "Why?"

They hurt him a great deal after that. It didn't help him understand, but it did make him angry.

He didn't ask again, but he watched. He watched and he tried to understand, and he swam in the bitter waters of his tiny lake and he watched Them walk around the edge of it, untouched and untouchable, coming to hurt him whenever They felt like it. Not because They wanted something from him, but because They thought it was fun.

They laughed and jostled each other and watched him twist between his shapes: human-shape and the horse and the eating shape. They didn't like the eating shape. The eating shape scared them, and They punished him for Their fear.  

The longer They had him, the more They hurt him, the more They made him kill—the more he wondered. The more he learned.

He learned what They were called: Hydra. The individuals came and went, died and were replaced, but always They were Hydra.

Time passed and a new man came, one who was in charge of Them, in charge of Hydra. One who decided who lived and who died. Who _chose._

The new man never smelled of fear, no matter what shape he took.

They gave him a new lake of bitter water and They hurt him and once, only once, one of the new Them tried to ride him. He gave Them their wish, but there was only so far he could run in the tiny lake with its hard walls and flat hard shore and They stopped him before he could drown his rider, before he could eat him—and for the first time ever in all the time he'd been alive he _wanted_ to.

He'd never wanted to before. It had just been what what he was, what he did, the same way he'd breathed and swam and lived in his first lake. He'd never chosen to kill the people who came to the edge of his lake, just like he'd never chosen to leave his lake to hunt for people to kill or chosen to leave his lake and kill the ones who came near to stare at him.

'Bucky' they called him after that ride. He'd been called things before, given little pieces of plastic with names on them when They took him out into the world, but Bucky was different, he realised eventually. It was his name. Just like They all had names. 

The second word he spoke was: "No." _No_ , because now he knew what it was to _want_ to kill someone. It meant that he knew what it was to _not_ want to. He was done killing for Them. Done with letting Them _choose_.

That baffled Them as much as it made Them angry, the man in charge staring at him from his blue, blue eyes, but he didn't give Them time to hurt him. He twisted into his eating shape, sharp hooves and sharper teeth, terror made flesh, and attacked. He was a tsunami turning on the unsuspecting ocean that birthed it and tearing it to pieces. When he was done, everything Hydra that had once been alive was dead, scattered in chunks across the blood-washed floor.

He'd been a kelpie, a piece of nature no more aware than a wave or a wildfire. He was still a kelpie, still a deadly piece of nature, but now he could choose.

Hydra had taught him that.

 

*   *   *

 

Bucky—and he'd kept the name, because however he'd gotten it, it was _his—_ had wound up here because of the lake. However much he wasn't a kelpie anymore, he also still was and he needed the water. He needed to be near the water, in the water, of the water. It was who he was.

Who. That was different. Being a who. Before Hydra, he'd never been a who.

He had a job because Bob had found him staring at the lake from the end of his dock and gently shooed him away. After a week of finding Bucky there every morning, gently shooing him away—even if it took longer and longer every day, since he started talking to Bucky before chasing him off—he'd ended up offering Bucky a job.

First, he'd offered Bucky a coffee. The day after that he'd asked Bucky if he wanted to work. Not once, even when he'd clapped Bucky on the shoulder, startling him so badly he'd jumped and whirled, did Bucky have the urge to eat him.

He'd said yes and now he worked for Bob's Boat Hire, being polite to customers—even if sometimes it didn't go right.

Bob gave him cash, and didn't ask any questions, and let him sleep in the boathouse, and at night he could change and swim out into the lake, black horse's body next thing to invisible under the starry sky.

He was spotted one night by a bunch of half-drunk young men trying to turn themselves into full drunk young men around a campfire on the beach.

They tried to lure him out of the water. Why they thought a horse would be tempted by beer, he wasn't sure, but he _was_ tempted. Humans at the edge of his lake, reaching hands. Old urges rose, dark and bloody—ignored, because he wouldn't kill them; he wouldn't eat them—but surely a wild ride wouldn't hurt.

Step by step, he let them draw him out until he was standing on the beach. They were laughing and cheering, so proud of themselves. Apparently they thought they'd rescued him.

He turned his head, arched his neck, delicately pawed one hoof.

"Ride it!" It wasn't clear who started the chant, but soon they were egging each other on until one stepped forward. Tall, brown hair, big hands, glint in his eye. Bucky curved towards him and he grinned and grabbed Bucky's mane while they boosted him up.

"Don't fall off!" one of his friends called, but there was no danger of that. Once you touched a kelpie you could never get free. He was stuck as surely as if he'd been glued there.  

For one moment Bucky stood still, then he gathered himself and launched forward. The young man on his back yelled, "Fuck!", scrabbled desperately at Bucky's mane, and Bucky ran, wild as the wind, up and over impossible obstacles, because he was a kelpie and a kelpie wasn't bound by the normal rules.

He could feel the young man's fear, but it wasn't fear alone. He was laughing as he leaned over Bucky's neck, obviously having figured out he wasn't going to fall. The wind was whipping past them with the speed of Bucky's run, and he plunged into the lake, running through the shallows, leaping over boats and docks, impossibly high, and his rider's laughter surrounded him, turning his fear into something sweet, flowing into him, feeding some part of him he hadn't known was starving.

The lake was there, its depths waiting, calling for him to drown and feed, but he turned away. He could feel his rider flagging, sagging over his neck. He cantered back close to where he'd found him. It was hard to let him go, to release his hold and let him slide off to fall in a heap, but he did it.  

"That was _awesome_ ," the young man said, laughing as he rolled onto his back, arms outflung. "Better than a roller coaster."

Bucky snorted at him and left.

 

*   *   *

 

It wasn't the last time.

It was amazing how many humans were prepared to ride a strange horse they found wandering by the lake (and he knew then that there were no kelpies in this country).

Bucky quickly learned to tell the difference between the ones who were horse crazy and the ones who were just crazy—the ones who enjoyed being scared, the ones he could take on a wild ride and their fear would be matched by excitement and turn sweet. It was something in their eyes. In the way they stood. They were the ones he chose.

Not often, but enough he felt more alive than he had since he'd said, 'No'.  

He always returned them close to where he found them. He always returned them safe. He never hurt them. He never hurt anyone.

Until the night of the full moon.

Until the night he saw the man near the shore, but he wasn't alone.

He had a child with him. He had a child and it was afraid. True fear, not the excitement-fear that Bucky shared with his riders. This was terror. He could taste it in the air and it was bitter.

He snorted, swimming closer, and he could see the man was holding a weapon close to the child's skin.

He knew about weapons. They had taught him about weapons. Guns and knives and this was a knife made for killing.

He could smell blood alongside the fear.

Bucky wasn't sure he chose, exactly, but he trotted out of the water and shifted, standing naked in the shallows, and the child looked at him with eyes that begged for help and the man stared at him with eyes that looked like Hydra's.

It was simple to catch the man's wrist in his moment of distraction, dragging him away from the child, breaking it so the knife fell, as he told the child to, "Run to the road," but he didn't wait, because the man was trying to fight back.  

He shifted to the horse and the man was stuck, caught, held fast, and Bucky whirled and dragged him into the water.

The man stunk of other people's blood, their pain, their fear. Their death. Children's, probably, given the knife and the child. Bucky's anger stirred and he surged towards the centre of the lake, swimming down deep as the man struggled, gasping, fighting to escape.

Afraid he was going to drown.

Not something he needed to worry about.

Deep in the depths of the lake, in the cold and the black, only the barest trickles of light leaking down from the full moon above, the man's legs feebly kicking, he called his eating shape.

His mouth opened wide, wide, and wider still, splitting his long horse's head all the way back to his neck. Sharp teeth flashed, wolf teeth, shark teeth, teeth with no place in the mouth of anything equine, and he snaked his head around and lunged, tearing chunks from the man as he tried to scream.

It didn't last long. The water churned red, and Bucky kept eating until nothing was left but the entrails.

 

*   *   *

 

His life had been easier when he could just toss the entrails on the shore of the lake.

Truth was, his life had been easier when he didn't know anything, when _he_ hadn't existed, before Hydra had made him a _who_ , had taught him to choose. But this was what he had to deal with now, and he wasn't going to toss entrails on the shore where anyone could stumble across them.

Grumbling, he swam back to land and found a garbage can, then wrapped them up securely in multiple layers of plastic bags, grateful that humans threw so many things away, and put them in the trash.

Then he sat down on the shore and stared at the water. Far across the lake, close to where he'd found the man and the child, he could see red and blue lights flashing, reflected off the water.

He was going to have to leave. The child had seen him. Had seen him change.

Tentatively, he prodded at what he'd done, and decided he was satisfied with his choice. The man had tried to hurt a child at the edge of Bucky's lake. He'd been blood-soaked, pain-soaked, death-soaked and he'd been _human_. He'd been free to choose, had _always_ been free to choose, and he'd chosen that. Bucky snorted, pure horse, pure disdain. Now he couldn't choose to hurt anyone else.

But he was going to have to leave.

It didn't take long to pack up his few belongings. He did leave a note for Bob. He was proud of it. It said he'd had to go because of a family emergency. It was a good lie. He also said thank you for the job and the place to stay. That part wasn't a lie.

Then he picked a direction and started walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested, this was the inspiration for Bucky's eating shape: [Kelpie](https://www.deviantart.com/skia/art/Kelpie-286588981)


	2. New York City, five years later

Steve had done a lot of strange things in his time as a consultant for Shield, enough to entirely recalibrate his standards for strange. The strangeness usually involved water, and Prospect Park Lake certainly qualified, he was just used to there being more of it. The whole reason he'd been recruited by the sliver of Shield that secretly dealt with things the rest of the world—and the rest of Shield—thought were mythological was because he was one of those things. Half mer, uniquely suited to deal with watery problems. The depths of the oceans, the bottom of the sea. On one memorable occasion, two of the Great Lakes.

He felt like someone else could probably have handled a small city lake.

"Are you going to tell me why we're here any time soon?" he asked.

Natasha gave him an inscrutable smile and squeezed his hand.

"And why we're holding hands?" he added under his breath.

Her inscrutable slid into amused, but he didn't roll his eyes.

"Maybe I can't fight this feeling anymore." She leaned her head on his shoulder as they strolled down the path that wound around the lake and batted her eyelashes.

"Uh huh. If you start singing, I'm leaving."

She grinned at him, this one completely genuine, and he was helpless not to grin back.

"There we go," she said, pleased with herself and letting him see it. "We're here," she continued in a low voice, head turned so anyone who might be so inclined wouldn't be able to read her lips, "because we think Wirrn's been spotted in the park. You and I are deeply in love, enjoying a beautiful day out on the lake, and then a bike ride around the park. If we happen to lay eyes on him, won't that be a happy coincidence."

Steve knew the name. He was a literal identity thief. He stole people's entire identities, sucked them right out of their heads, leaving only vacuum behind. People recovered…eventually. You could fight it if you were stubborn enough and knew what was happening—but he was also strong as a bull and it was hard to fight if you'd been knocked semi-conscious. "Why me?"

"Because no one notices a couple, I trust your eyes, and we know for sure he's never seen you or me. We're not sure about anyone else from our side of Shield, and we can't send any of the normal agents in in case they get sucked dry."  

"Right." It absolutely didn't make his heart warm to hear Nat say she trusted any part of him. Not at all. "Alright, snookums."

Natasha's smile had teeth. "Snookums?"

"Honey bear?"

The teeth turned into fangs and he tried not to laugh.

"Sweetie?"

"I can live with that," she stopped, pulled his head down, kissed him—which was weird, but he coped—then whispered in his ear, "and luckily so can you."  

He gave in and did laugh as they started walking towards the rental place.

Steve filled out the paperwork and paid the money, then got in line for a pedal boat. There were only three other people in front of him, and no one behind him, but Natasha left him to go sit on a bench in the shade. He assumed it was part-revenge for snookums and honey bear, and part to keep watch for Wirrn, and didn't mind in the least.

Especially when he got to the front of the line and saw the guy waiting to give him a boat.

He wasn't quite as tall as Steve, his long dark hair pulled back in a messy tail, strands escaping to blow across his face. His kind of perfect face. His eyes were deep and bright and a grey-blue that reminded Steve of the ocean, of the sea after a storm, with the same sort of pull. There was something… He didn't know what it was. It was almost familiar.

He had to swallow twice to make the words work. "Hi," he glanced down at the guy's nametag, "Jason."

The guy blinked at him in apparent confusion for a moment, then said, "Bucky."

"What?"

"Jason's not my name. It's Bucky."

Steve pointed at his name tag and raised an eyebrow.

"The boss doesn't like getting new nametags made."

"Oh, right." Steve smiled at him, and he put a lot of effort into it, made it warm and inviting. "Bet that gets confusing sometimes, a bunch of people being called Jason."

"Not really."

"Oh," he said again, smile dipping a little, but he rallied. "Bucky's an interesting name," he offered.

"Is it?"

"A little? Maybe not." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm Steve."

Bucky nodded.

"Have you been working here long?"

"A few years."

"That's good, because I don't know anything about boats. Do you have any suggestions?" Steve smiled at him again, this time hopefully.

Bucky tilted his head, looking a little puzzled, and said, "You can have a blue one or a yellow one."

Steve's shoulders slumped, and he nodded, ready to give up, but then Bucky smiled and it was—Jesus, did Steve's heart actually skip a beat? Was that a thing that could actually happen?

"Here. Take," he turned and rummaged around in a box and pulled out a numbered plastic tag, "take twenty-seven. It's a good boat. It's yellow," he clarified.  

He took the tag from Bucky, resisting the urge to let their fingers brush, because he wasn't a creep. "Anything else I should know?"

"If you want to move, you have to peddle. And you have to wear your life vest." His gaze grew intent, skewering Steve like a spear, and his voice dropped an octave as he said, "You don't want to drown."

"No," he replied. "No, I don't." There was as much chance of Steve drowning as there was of him spontaneously sprouting wings, but there was no other answer he could possibly give to that look, to that voice.

"Good." With a satisfied nod, Bucky stepped back.

Steve couldn't think of any possible way to prolong things, except maybe pretending to trip and throwing himself into Bucky's arms, which—no. "Thanks," he said instead, offered another smile, took one last quick look, and left.  

Natasha was smirking when he dropped to sit next to her on the bench.

"You know," she said, head tilted, "this will work better if you don't try and flirt with cute boat boys."

He could feel the tips of his ears going red, but he just raised his eyebrows at her. "Because an asshole who flirts in front of his girlfriend is so unusual."

"True," she conceded.

"It's not like he noticed anyway."

"Aw, poor baby." She patted his arm. "Come on, paddle me around in a boat."

 

*   *   *

 

Bucky had gotten this job at this lake by watching and learning who was in charge and then telling them he'd work for half what they paid everyone else if he could work for cash. The first time he'd tried, at a different lake in a different park, one with a fancier boathouse and crisper uniforms, they'd told him to get out or they'd call the police.

These ones, they'd smiled at him with sharp eyes and said yes.

He'd learned a lot in the year it had taken him to get to New York. For a start, he'd learned that it was the perfect place to go if you didn't want to be noticed. A woman on a Greyhound bus had told him that. She'd also told him where to get ID with his name on it, but warned him to be careful how he used it, not to let anyone put it into a government computer.

She'd been nice. Helpful. He still wasn't sure why, but he appreciated it.

He liked New York. Here, he didn't have just a lake. He had _his_ lake, the one in Prospect Park where he worked, and he had an entire river. The humans had given it different names: Hudson River and East River and various bays, but to Bucky they were all one. The water was salty in some places and sweet in others, but that didn't bother him. The spots where it was contaminated, they bothered him, and the ships bothered him, but they were both annoyances it was easy enough to avoid.

The river was his home. It was _his_ , as much as the lake was. They were where he slept, hidden under the water. Most of what he owned he kept in a locker at work, with stashes of clothes and cash sealed in waterproof bags and tucked in nooks in the river.  

He liked New York because it was easy to find adrenaline junkies here. He had a name for them now, the people who'd climb onto a strange black horse. He had names for lots of things, now, understood so much more about humans and the world, thanks to the library: their books and their computers and their librarians.  

Thrill-seekers, adrenaline junkies, people who enjoyed being scared for fun. There were so many of them. People who'd climb aboard a strange black horse and enjoy the small fear of being taken on a wild, impossible ride. Their fear-excitement was sweet and it fed something inside of  him.

He always returned them safe, if a little shaky, close to where he'd found them.

He always shadowed them, secret and unseen, until they were safely to somewhere with lights and people. If he left them, vulnerable because of the ride he'd taken them on, and something happened, someone hurt them, it'd be almost the same as if he'd hurt them himself.

 

*   *   *

 

Twice, he rescued people from the river.

Once, it was clearly against her will, but he didn't care. He wasn't going to swim away and leave her to drown. He caught her and dragged her to the shore, and she didn't throw herself back in, unwilling to try and get past the snorting black horse blocking her way. Eventually she sat down and started crying.

He didn't know what to do, so he just stood, keeping watch, until she climbed to her feet, walked unsteadily to her car, pulled out her phone and called for help.

 

*   *   *

 

Some days, when the city was loud and humans were shrill and demanding and the lake was still and quiet, Bucky would stand at the edge and yearn for what he'd been.

Not the killing. He didn't miss the killing. The catching, the drowning, the eating. The urges were still there, dark and bloody, but he didn't want them. He wouldn't choose them. Not unless they were the only choice.

But he missed the simplicity. He missed not knowing. Not being aware. Not being a _who_.

Before They'd taken him he'd been alone. Kelpies were always alone, it was part of what they were, but he'd had no awareness of it. _Alone_ hadn't meant anything.

It meant something now.

 

*   *   *

 

Bucky was sitting at a bench that overlooked the lake while he ate breakfast. Despite the potential for crumbs, the ducks and geese refused to come anywhere near him. They knew what he was. They had no way of knowing everything he'd become, so they gave him a wide berth.

He wasn't working today, but it didn't matter. He spent every morning here by his lake. Another reason his bosses liked him. Bucky might not have a phone, but if someone didn't show up for work they could always find Bucky somewhere close by and get him to work instead.

"Bucky?"

He stopped eating and looked over his shoulder. There was a tall, broad, blond-haired, blue-eyed man talking to him. He squinted, staring, and remembered. "Steve."

Steve, from two days ago, who'd introduced himself. Customers didn't usually introduce themselves. They didn't usually smile at him like Steve had. Like he was doing now, broad and happy, as if the sun had wandered down out of the sky to take up residence on his face.

"Yeah, hi. What are you up to?"

He looked down at the food in his hands, then looked back up at Steve. "Eating breakfast."

"Right, yeah, of course." He held up his coffee. "Mind if I join you?"

It was a strange thing to ask, and a strange sensation followed. Maybe happiness? It felt a little like Steve's smile. It took him a moment to answer, poking at the feeling, Steve waiting patiently, almost hopefully.

"You can join me," he said, shifting away from the middle of the bench to make room for him.

"Thanks." Steve beamed at him and sat down, not too close but not too far away. Bucky could feel the faintest hint of warmth from him. It was…nice, he decided. Pleasant. Steve smelled good. Warm and clean and a little bit like the sea.

Bucky leaned down and fished around in the paper bag at his feet, pulling out his second breakfast sandwich. "Here." He held it out to Steve.

"I'm not going to eat your breakfast!"

"You can't join me if you don't have something to eat." He held it out a little further, insistently, frowning. "Otherwise it's not joining me, it's just sitting here while I eat."

With a tiny twitch of his lips, Steve took it. "Well when you put it that way," he said. "Thanks."

Bucky nodded.

"I'd offer you some of my coffee, but I've only got the one cup."

He shook his head. "You're joining me, not the other way around. Next time you can bring more coffee and I'll join you."

"Next time?" Steve said, eyes lighting up.

Bucky shrugged, because there'd either be a next time or there wouldn't be and if there was, Steve could bring two coffees. "Eat your sandwich."

Steve took a bite, and so did Bucky, and they ate in silence. A couple of geese eyed Steve, or more accurately, eyed his sandwich, but obviously decided Bucky's presence wasn't worth the risk.

"How's work?" Steve asked after a bit.  

"I'm not working today."

"But you're still here." He waved his hand, taking in the park and the lake.

"I'm always here," Bucky said, voice soft and deep. "The lake's—" He stopped himself before he said _my home_ , because he knew a human wouldn't say something like that. "It's beautiful here," he said instead. "It's my favourite place." It was. Even with the whole river to call his own, the lake was the place he returned to the most. He was a kelpie, however much he also wasn't, and he belonged to the lake, the same way the lake belonged to him.

"It is beautiful," Steve agreed. "Peaceful, in a way. I can see why you like it."

Warmth wrapped around him, as if the tiny warmth he could feel radiating from Steve had jumped between them and grown as large as the lake itself. Bucky turned to face him. Steve was smiling again, head tilted, watching him.

It was good watching, Bucky decided. Not bad. He didn't mind Steve watching him. And Steve thought his lake was beautiful. He smiled back. "I'm glad you like the lake."

"Me too," Steve said softly and Bucky wasn't sure, but it felt like the words were bigger than they should be.

He turned back to the lake, and he could feel Steve watching him, and watching the lake, and watching him again but he didn't mind, and they passed the time in comfortable quiet until Steve had to go.

Before he left Steve leaned on the back of his bench, elbow so close it almost brushed Bucky's shoulder, and asked, "Can I see you again?"

"I'm here every morning," Bucky told him and got to see him grin.

 

*   *   *

 

Nightfall found Steve back in Prospect Park.

He doubted he'd luck out and find Bucky sitting on a bench, willing to share his time and his breakfast and his smiles, but that wasn't why he was here.

Not that he'd say no if—when?—the chance came again. _Should have asked for his number, Steve_ , his inner Natasha said and smacked her gum. He had no idea why his inner Natasha always seemed to be chewing gum, but the mind was a weird place.

No, he was here because he couldn’t leave well enough alone. Because even when he wasn't officially on a job for Shield he couldn't quite stop working for them. Maybe he should just give in and go over full time. They wanted him, he knew, but he wanted to keep part of his life for him. Artist and part-time Shield consultant was a lot more appealing than Shield Agent.

Even though he and Nat hadn't seen anything, and he knew Shield would be on it, there'd been a possible sighting in Prospect Park. It wouldn't hurt to have another set of eyes swing through and take a look. That's what he'd been doing this morning, when he'd had the unexpected bonus of Bucky, and that's what he was doing now.

Not that he thought it would lead to anything.

As if the universe was personally determined to prove him wrong, after ten minutes or so wandering the path through the trees, dodging a few late night cyclists, he rounded a curve, and there, sitting on a bench, illuminated by a streetlight like he'd paid it to be his own personal halo, was Wirrn. Staring at his phone.

_I'll be damned._

A rising swell surged up inside Steve. The fins on his arms, his legs, that ran down his spine, tried to flare to life, but he kept them under control.

He knew he couldn't take Wirrn on land, the guy was just too strong, but if Steve could get him to the water?

Steve's smile would have made Natasha proud—even if she'd be deeply unimpressed with everything else he was about to do.

He sent her a quick text, then went to work, glad he'd dressed well on the off-chance he might see Bucky. From everything they knew, Wirrn wasn't all that interested in dating or hook-ups, but he'd pretend to follow Steve's honeypot for the chance to steal Steve's life—but only if it looked like it was a life worth having.

 

*   *   *

 

Bucky was swimming in the murky water of his lake, idly chasing fish—he was more bored than hungry and the fish could tell—hooves churning up the mud, when he heard the voices.

They were coming from the edge of his lake. 

Not that voices on their own were unusual, but there was something… Angry. Dangerous. _Wrong_ about one of them.

And he recognised the other.

He flashed through the water, faster than the fish, and surfaced under the night sky.

There were two men, standing in the mud on a jut of land that protruded from the shore, concealed from it by trees and darkness. One was lean with sharp teeth and eyes like Hydra, stalking towards the other, saying, "Did you really think I didn't know you were Shield?"

The other was Steve. Steve, who was backing away, backing towards the water, hands raised.

Steve, who'd sat with him and eaten with him and smiled at him like sunshine. Steve, who thought Bucky's lake was beautiful.

Anger rose, sharp and hot. He surged up out of the lake and crashed into the man with the Hydra eyes who was threatening Steve. He stuck fast to Bucky's coat, trapped, helpless to escape even as he struggled and cried out and his fear was sweet.

He reared up, about to leap into the water, to drag the man who wanted to hurt Steve away, to take him where he couldn’t hurt him, but Steve's voice rang out, strong as the tides, as unstoppable as a flood, reaching down deep inside him. "Stop!"

He dropped to the muddy ground, hooves squelching, and turned. More fear soaked the air, but it wasn't sweet. It was bitter, burning, rolling off Steve. Steve was breathing hard, one hand outstretched, reaching or warding or maybe both, Bucky didn't know, and he dug his hooves into the wet ground, shaking his head, because he didn't want Steve's fear.

 

*   *   *

 

The… horse—for his sanity Steve was going with horse, even though he knew horses didn't have eyes that glowed a sickly yellow—wasn't that big, but it didn't need to be. The absolute malevolence rolling off it had the hair standing up on the back of his neck, his fins straining to break free.

Wirrn was hanging off it, stuck to its chest and neck like he'd been glued there, kicking and struggling.

"Stop," Steve said again, hands low, like this really was a horse, like horses could suspend people from their bodies.

There was a low snort and suddenly Wirrn dropped, dropped right down to land between its front hooves.

"Don't move," Steve snapped out before he could try and scramble away and Wirrn gave him a panicked look.

"You're Shield! You have to save me!"

The horse moved like a snake as it snapped its teeth in the air above Wirrn's head.

"Shut up," Steve said. "Just, shut up and don't move."

Wirrn went still.

Steve breathed out slowly.

"Okay," he said. "Okay." He pulled the cuffs out of his back pocket. They were designed to hold people like Wirrn, warded to the nines and unbreakable. But to put them on him he was going to have to get up close to the hors—

No. Sanity had left the building. This wasn't a horse. Glowing eyes, black as pitch, Wirrn had been stuck to it like Velcro. It came up out of the _lake_.

It was a kelpie.

Steve might be in the least danger of anyone from a kelpie, but that was like being a little bit pregnant. Sure, a kelpie couldn't drown him. _Nothing_ could drown him. Steve might even be able to outswim one, maybe, but he was sure he couldn't outfight one, and neither of those would matter if it grabbed him because nothing could make a kelpie let you go.  

 _Except yelling stop?_ He shook the thought off, because it was _insane_.

He took a careful step closer. The kelpie didn't move, so he took another, and another, easing down, and Wirrn held out his hands for the cuffs. 

Steve snapped them on and looked straight up into the glowing eyes of the kelpie. He wasn't sure he'd ever been closer to death in his life. He didn't move, did his best impression of a rock, and the harsh glow slowly faded.

With a soft snort, the kelpie backed away, spun, and with a splash it was gone.

Steve's next breath was shaky with relief and Wirrn went limp.

"Get me the fuck out of here before it comes back and eats us both."

 

*   *   *

 

The debrief wasn't the most fun Steve had ever had. First he had to deal with being read the riot act for going after Wirrn alone, then the disbelief on Nat's face as he tried to explain the kelpie. He got an unexpected assist from Wirrn, who backed him.

Apparently saving someone from a kelpie earned you a certain amount of loyalty. Or something. Points, anyway.

"So why didn't it eat both of you?" Natasha asked.

"Damned if I know, Nat." He leaned both elbows on the table and stared at her blearily. It was three in the morning; he was keeping his eyes open through sheer stubbornness at this point. "Why did it stop? Why did it let go of Wirrn?"

"Hear me out," Clint said. "Could it be part-kelpie? Like you're half mer?"

Natasha's nose wrinkled in disgust. Steve's would have joined her if it wasn't so tired. Instead he said, "No. That's, you're basically talking about bestiality."

Clint opened his mouth.

"Yes, even when they're human-shaped," Steve said tiredly.

He closed it.

"They're not animals, but they don't _think_. They're not like my dad. Merfolk are just like us, apart from the whole _mer_ bit. Even if someone decided they wanted to," he searched his tired brain, 404'd on a less crude term, and gave up, "fuck a kelpie, managed it without getting eaten, and I'd like to know _how_ they managed that, the two species aren't going to be genetically compatible."

They were both staring at him.

"What?"

"Fuck a kelpie, Steve?" Natasha asked.

He waved a hand. "I'm tired. We've got a kelpie on the loose in New York. Pretend I picked a better word. Anyway, Clint started it."

"Did not," he muttered.

"Did so," Steve replied.

"Boys," Natasha said. "What I want to know is how it got here. They're native to Scotland. Someone had to bring it here, and that means they either let it loose or it escaped."

Steve's brain woke up a little, contemplated the idea of someone deliberately setting a kelpie loose on New York, and recoiled. "How do they deal with them in Scotland?"

"Two massive sculptures," Natasha said, "pumping out equally massive wards that stop humans from touching kelpies and kelpies from hurting humans."

"Seriously?" Clint asked.

"You know me, I'm always serious." Steve coughed pointedly and she aimed an eyebrow at him. "It's even called The Kelpies, so they weren't going for subtle. But I guess they didn't have to be subtle. Even in Scotland people don't believe in kelpies. Before that," she lifted one shoulder, "a specialist division of Scottish Natural Heritage managed them the same way Australians manage crocodiles. Warnings, relocations, and if there was no other option, they killed them."

"We've got a giant statue," Clint said thoughtfully. "She's even out in the water."

"No," Natasha said. "The Statute of Liberty's already being used. She protects New York from dragons."

"Wait, really?" Steve asked.

Natasha gave him an enigmatic smile.

"I hate it when you do that."

"I know."

"But it can be killed," Clint said.

"With the right weapons, yes," Natasha replied. "First we have to find it."  

"Before it eats anyone," Clint said.  

"Before it eats anyone _else_ ," Natasha corrected. "Whatever happened tonight, no one else it's found can possibly have been that lucky."

Steve nodded, but he couldn't help remembering. Remembering, yes, the malevolence that had dripped from the kelpie like water. But also, that it had _stopped_. That it hadn't hurt him. It could have, so easily, but it hadn't even tried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to just all of Scotland, but especially to Andy Scott, sculptor of The Kelpies, and Scottish Natural Heritage, which I'm sure doesn't have a secret kelpie management division.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, when Bucky saw Steve walking down the path next to his lake, long stride, determined look, not smiling, he felt cold, remembering the bitter, burning taste of his fear. It was something he never wanted to taste again.

It was balanced by happiness, by a burgeoning, billowing warmth, because Steve was safe, Steve was here, Steve had spotted him, sitting on his bench near the lake, and was making his way over.

Bucky greeted him with the truth sitting on the edge of his tongue, precariously balanced. Waiting to spill over, _wanting_ to spill over. But it couldn't. If he told Steve, if he was believed, he'd have to leave. He knew it wouldn't be safe to stay.

He liked Steve. He _liked_ him, which was new, unexpected. He believed Steve wouldn't mean him harm, but he remembered last night's fear. Steve knew what a kelpie was and, however much Bucky wasn't a kelpie, he also still was, and that wasn't something it would be safe to share.

The truth tumbled back into hiding and he smiled instead. "Steve."

"Bucky." There was relief in Steve's voice, and worry, and complex emotions he didn't know how to read. "Come over here, will you?"

Steve drew him away from the lake, across the path, off into the trees, seeming to breathe easier when they got there.

"I need to ask you something," Steve said seriously, "and it'll sound strange, but I promise you it's important. Okay?"

Bucky nodded.

"I need you to be careful near the lake."

He understood and almost, almost laughed. This was Steve warning him to be careful of…himself. Everything in him softened even as it hurt.

"Stay away from the water if you can, away from the edges of the lake. I know you love it here, and I know you can't completely, because of work, but be careful. Keep an eye out."

"What am I keeping an eye out for?" he asked, understanding what humans meant when they talked about twisting the knife, except he was twisting it into himself.

Steve ran his hands through his hair, ruffling it up, making a mess, and Bucky wanted to smooth it down. "You'll think I'm crazy."

"I promise," Bucky said truthfully, "I won't think you're crazy."

"A horse. A black horse."

He waited, watching to see Bucky's reaction, but he only nodded and said, "Okay, Steve."

"If you see it, stay away from it, keep people away from the lake. I'm going to give you my number. Call me if you see it."

"I don't have a phone."

"You don't have phone?"

"No."

"Then borrow a phone, or use a payphone, or the phone at work but call me. I'll be there right away."

Steve paused and, hesitant, hand hovering for a moment, long enough Bucky could have moved out of reach if he wanted, Steve touched him. Just gently. Steve's fingers against his forearm. Bucky shivered at the feeling of it, the warmth of it. The unexpected newness of it.

"The most important thing is don't get close to it. It's not safe. I want you to be safe."

He touched Steve in return, pure daring, wanting to know what it would feel like to press his fingertips against the back of Steve's hand where it rested against his forearm. _Good._ It was good. "I want that, too."

 

*   *   *

 

For all Shield's surveillance, tapped into the city's CCTV networks, they couldn't find the kelpie. But their electronic spiders, lurking inside multiple municipal databases, also didn't turn up reports of piles of guts near the city's waterways, the sign of a kelpie's kill.

There were Shield agents playing tourist around the lake in Prospect Park, their guns loaded with silver bullets, since according to Natasha's contact at Scottish Natural Heritage it was the only reliable way to kill a kelpie.

The kelpie never surfaced.

Even the best Shield agent, playing the most innocuous and bumbling tourist, couldn’t hide what they were from Bucky. He saw the hunters watching his lake. He couldn't _know_ they were hunting him, not for certain, but he was afraid they were.

He took Steve's warning to heart, even if it wasn't quite in the way Steve had meant it, and he stayed away from his lake.

 

*   *   *

 

It was late, the moon hanging half heavy in the sky, when Steve made his way down towards the Hudson River. He wasn't hunting the kelpie. He wasn't hunting anything apart from some peace. What he wanted was the open ocean, the sea stretching out around him, wind and waves and salt, but since he couldn’t have that the river would have to do.

The river wasn't what it'd been when he was a kid, so polluted his dad had needed to leave. It was better, cleaner. Even _whales_ came to visit now, sometimes, and people swam in it semi-regularly. Normal people, not half mer like him.

There were a few secluded spots where he could watch the water, sure of not being disturbed if he left it late enough, where he could free his fins and let his scales show.

It had been a long time since he'd been to this particular one, but he hadn't expected to find it occupied.

There was a woman there, leaning against a tree, wearing black jeans and a dark purple hoodie, and she straightened, startled and wary, when she saw him.

He held up his hands and backed up a couple of steps. "Sorry. Sorry, I didn't know there was someone here. I'll go."

She didn't say anything, not that he expected her to, and he turned, started walking away, when she called, "Wait, hang on a sec."

He stopped, looking back at her over his shoulder.

"What are you doing here?"

"Uh," he started, not sure what to say, and she nodded.

"Yeah, I thought so. You've got the look."

He turned around to face her, still keeping his distance. "The look?"

"Yeah, the look. You're here for the horse, aren't you?"

He'd seen a hunting dog catch a scent once. Nose up, ears up, locked on. He felt a little like that now. He tried not to let it show. "What if I was?"

"Well," she said, "it might be that I'd be okay with you waiting, too."

"You sure?"

"Sure. He makes his own choices. Nothing either of us can do about that. So you can go ahead and wait, see if he shows." She pointed her head at a tree. "You'd better get out of the light or someone's gonna see you. We don't want to attract attention."

He went to lean on the tree she indicated, not too close, and tried not to fidget. He could feel her gaze on him.

"This your first time?" she asked.

He shrugged.

"I'm not gonna ask how you know, because we don't talk about that."

"What, it's like fight club?" She gave him a stern look. "Sorry."

"Good."

Silence fell between them, the noises of the night creeping in and Steve watched the river, listened to it lap against the wall, feeling it in his heart.

"You ever worry it might not be safe?" he asked after a while, trying to draw out information when he had no idea what was going on.

"Safe," she said with a little huff. "You're worried about _safe_. You sure you're in the right place?"

"I'm sure I'm not interested in dying," he said dryly, putting a sarcastic twist on words that were completely true.

"You're not going to get hurt. He's," she tapped her fingers against the tree, then nodded once, "he's like the Black Stallion, you know?"

Steve stared at her, brow wrinkling in confusion. "You mean the movie?"

"Yeah, exactly. You know the Black was a New Yorker, right?"

"Uh, I think he was from somewhere in the Middle East."

"Sure, maybe he was born there, but my mom made me watch that movie when I was a kid, and he lived right here in New York. This was where he belonged. This horse is like the Black. If you're in the right place at the right time and you're the right kind of person, he'll take you for the ride of your life."

She frowned at him thoughtfully, then straightened.

"And I think you need this more than me."

"What?"

"I'm gonna leave you to it, Mr Is-It-Safe. I've had my chance, I've ridden him twice. I'm gonna go, you're gonna stay. There's no way of knowing if he'll show up, and if he does, he might not take you, but this way you'll have the best chance you can."

She started walking away.

"Do you want me to go with you?"

She waved a hand at him, calling, "I’m good. No one's gonna mess with me. You stay," and left.

He watched her go, feeling fucking baffled, mind whirling with questions, and when he turned back to the river, the kelpie was there.

It should have been a nightmare. Steve should have run. His heart started pounding, adrenaline spiking, and he swallowed hard, but he held his ground.

The kelpie was watching him from faintly glowing eyes, head lifted high, but he bowed it down low to blow out a long breath. Steve felt like he was talking to him. Asking. Asking: _what do you want?_

This was stupid, and dangerous, and he was probably going to die.  

He couldn’t find the fear that had swamped him last time.

"She told me if I'm in the right place at the right time and I'm the right kind of person, you'll take me for the ride of my life." The Natasha in his head was screaming _it's a kelpie, Steve, it can't understand you,_ and for once her gum had been forgotten, but he tuned her out. "Am I the right kind of person?"

The kelpie lifted his head and the glow in his eyes wasn't harsh. It was soft, warm, like a light in the window when you've been far from home. Then he pivoted, offering his back.

_Steve, don't you dare._

_Sorry, Nat._

He didn't actually know how to get on a horse. He hopped down the wall and waded out, then grabbed a handful of mane and jumped up, lying on his stomach across the kelpie's back, scrambling until he could swing his leg over and get settled.

The fear hit then, just for a second. It felt like the kelpie flinched. He swung his head around and looked at Steve. Not moving. Waiting. Patient and still. Steve wasn't sure he'd ever been so confused in his entire life. He lifted his legs, his arms. He wasn't stuck, wasn't caught.  

"What are you?" he murmured and the kelpie blew out another long breath. Still waiting. "Okay. Show me."  

The kelpie's power took hold, he felt himself caught, understood at that moment he was entirely at the kelpie's mercy. It made him shudder, but a second later he was grateful, because the kelpie launched himself forward, a bullet out of a gun, and Steve would have been slammed into the water, probably nursing broken bones, if he hadn't been held fast.

The wind whipped past, pulling tears out of his eyes, and he hunched his back, tangling his fingers in the kelpie's mane. He knew he couldn't fall, but it was instinct or something deeper that told him to _hang on_ as they raced, impossibly fast, straight towards…

"That's a dock."

The kelpie stretched out, running faster, and Steve tugged at his mane.

"Stop. Stop, you're going to—"

The wind tore the words from his mouth as the kelpie _flew_ , leapt, and cleared it. It was impossible, gravity didn't work like that, and he laughed like a loon as they landed, and the kelpie gave a little buck and tucked his head, slamming through knee-deep water so fast a wake tore behind them.

Steve gave in to the impossible. He'd surrendered sanity the first time he'd seen the kelpie, given in completely when he'd hauled himself on his back. He may as well keep going. They were in a race with themselves and the kelpie seemed determined to win, leaping up onto land, splashing back down into the river, jumping up and over small structures and Steve urged him on, heart racing as fast as the kelpie, laughing at each impossibility.

The kelpie's ears pointed straight forward as it ran, but they flicked back when Steve laughed, when he gasped, when he shifted to the small extent he could. He was paying attention to Steve. He knew Steve was there. They were doing this _together_ and it was like Steve had forgotten how to be afraid, like someone had sucked it right out of him and poured joy in the space it used to be. 

When the kelpie pulled up, the water was lapping at Steve's hips. He had no idea where they were, but he didn't care. "That all you got?" he said, leaning forward, letting his gills flare open, the fins flutter to life on his arms, as the shadow of iridescent scales poured up and over his skin.

The kelpie went rigid, snorting, and craned his neck around, nose so close to Steve's neck he could feel warm breath and whiskers.

"They're real," Steve said. "I can't drown. Show me what you've got. What you've really got."

 

*   *   *

 

Steve had asked if he was the right kind of person.

He was. He was the best person.

If Bucky could have Steve he didn't think he'd ever want another rider. Steve's joy-excitement was as sweet as his fear had been bitter and burning, so strong it rolled through Bucky's whole body, and apart from those few moments at the beginning, there'd been no fear. Only the excitement-joy.

Bucky wanted to keep it forever.

He knew he was doing a small bad thing by taking Steve on this ride without telling him who he was. He wouldn't have even tried if he hadn't heard the woman talking to Steve. Telling him about her rides. Letting Steve know that he wouldn't be hurt. He didn't know any other way Steve might believe he was not what Steve thought he was. Or what Steve would think he was if he stood in human-shape and told Steve he was a kelpie.

He could only show him. Show him who he was and hope it would be enough.

He'd stopped in the shallows, intending to let Steve off and change, to show him the truth, but then Steve had shown him his own truth, gills and fins, the smell of salt and the sea, and _I can't drown_ and _show me what you've got._

Bucky wasn't sure what this feeling was, exactly. Feelings. There was more than one, all mixed up together. Astonishment, yes, and something that felt like exasperation. Maybe a touch of anger, because however much he wasn't a kelpie, he also still was and kelpies didn't just _drown_ , they _ate_. He almost wanted to turn around and nip Steve for being so stupid. It was an entirely new feeling. Along with it came a spreading light, a buoyancy, growing from a point somewhere near his heart, that however stupid it was, Steve trusted him.

He sighed, a long, snorting breath, and shook himself all over.

Steve held tight to his mane and laughed. "Show me," he said again and Bucky caught him and held him fast and plunged down deep into the water, into the murky blackness, eyes glowing bright while Steve's excitement-joy wreathed around him.

 

*   *   *

 

Bucky brought Steve back to where he'd found him, surging up out of the river, water streaming from them both, and let him go.

Steve just sat for a moment, shifting on his back, the salt-sea fading from his scent, then slid off, sloshing his way back to land, and sat on the low wall.

"What now?" he murmured. "What the hell happens now?"

Bucky knew Steve wasn't talking to him.

He answered anyway.

The shift from horse shape to human was quick and smooth and he was standing in water up to his waist. Naked, but there was nothing he could easily do about that.

Steve went still. The still of the hunter and the still of the hunted. "Bucky?"

"Yes."

"You're the kelpie?"

"Yes."

"You…" Steve shook his head. "You _can't_ be. You can't be a kelpie, kelpies don't, they aren't—" He gestured at Bucky helplessly. "They aren't _you_."

Bucky considered the problem, wondered what words he could use to convince Steve if he hadn't been convinced by what he'd seen so far, and found none.

But there was one way.

He wondered if Steve would run. If the bitter taste of his fear would fill the air.

Bucky shifted to the horse and kept shifting, changing to his eating shape. Rising up high, jaw split wide, teeth jutting out, eyes glowing harsh and hard.

Steve didn't flinch. Steve didn't move. Steve just watched him, and watched him, and slowly it turned into good watching. Calm, clear, cool. His eyes like the heart of a lake.

"I believe you," he said softly. "I don't understand, but Bucky, I believe you."

He let it fall away, human-shaped once more, and smiled at Steve. "Thanks."

Laughing a little, Steve said, "You're welcome, I guess. Bucky." He slid off the wall and back into the water, shoes sloshing, wet jeans swishing together. "Bucky."

"Steve."

"Does this mean we're wrong about kelpies?"

"No!" It burst out of him, driven by a pang of fear sliding across his heart at the thought of Steve approaching another kelpie. "No. A kelpie will kill you. Drown you, eat you. It won't know you and it won't know itself. It'll do it because that's what a kelpie is."

"But you know me. You know yourself."

"Yes. I'm different now, but," it was truth again, waiting to tumble free, and this time he let it, "I'm still a kelpie. A tiny part of me still says _drown_ , still says _eat_." Steve swallowed, but there was no taste of fear. Bucky moved closer. "But I _choose_ not to. I learned how to choose. They taught me, even if They didn't mean to. I would never hurt you. I don't want to hurt anyone."

"I believe you," Steve said again and again, it made Bucky smile. Steve smiled gently back, but it faded. "Bucky? Who's 'They'?"

Almost, he changed back to the horse. To flee. To run from the question, but he'd let the truth free for Steve and it was too late to stop it now. "They took me from my lake, and They made me kill people for Them. People who'd never done anything to me. Or to Them. They made me kill people because They wanted them dead. They chose people and made me kill them and I learned to choose not to."

Steve was watching him. Not good watching—not bad, either, but like he was waiting for something more, so Bucky said, "They were called Hydra."

Recognition flashed through Steve's eyes.  

"You know who They are."

"I've heard of them, yeah."

"They didn't want me to stop, so they're gone now."

 

*   *   *

_They're gone now._ There was _nothing_ in Bucky's voice as he said those words, but his lips twisted, a ghost of the horrific shape he'd shown Steve and Steve understood what he meant.

They were gone because a kelpie had happened to them. Because _Bucky_ had happened to them. Killed them. Maybe eaten them.

Steve…found it hard to care.

Hydra. Jesus. Half-cult, half-terrorists, he'd heard of them because of Nat, but she mostly talked about them in the past tense. Five-six years ago they'd suddenly stopped being a problem.

He wondered if he was looking at the reason why.

Steve couldn't imagine what sort of fucked up planning would lead to catching a _kelpie_ and trying to turn it into, what, an assassin? That's what it sounded like.

He couldn't imagine what sort of fucked up things they'd have to do to a kelpie to turn it into an assassin. What had they done to Bucky? What had he been through? What had he survived?

He couldn't stop himself from reaching out, barely caught himself before making contact, then had to wonder if Bucky's flash of disappointment was his own wishful thinking or something real.

 _Bucky._ How in the hell had he become this? Become _Bucky_? He was absolutely a kelpie. Steve had no doubts. There was nothing else in the world that could do what Bucky'd shown him. But he was something impossible, a kelpie with, with _consciousness_ , with a _conscience_. Who'd said _I would never hurt you. I don't want to hurt anyone._ God knows he'd had the chance since Steve had been stupid enough to climb on his back.

Along with plenty of other people, according to that woman, her included, and Bucky had said he'd been working at the boat place for _years_.

Steve's mind was so overloaded with questions he wondered if this was what it felt like to drown, but knee-deep in the Hudson River wasn't the place to be asking them.

"Bucky? Do you live around here?"

Bucky spread his hands wide, fingers trailing in the water. "I live right here."

"You don't have a home?"

Now Bucky looked insulted, or maybe like he thought Steve was a little slow. "Yes, I have a home. I just said. Here. The lake, the river. They're my home."

"No, I mean, somewhere inside. An apartment, a house. A room, maybe?"

"Why would I have one of those?"

"No, of course, what was I thinking," Steve muttered, slicking the water out of his hair. "Right. Would you come back to mine?"

"Why?"

"I'd like to talk to you some more, and this isn't the best place to do it." He waved a hand at Bucky's naked torso, the water curling around his hips, deliberately ignoring the part of him that insisted on noticing that Bucky was _gorgeous._ "I'm not sure what we're going to do about getting you there, I don't think I can afford the tip it would take to get someone to let you in the car naked, but I'll figure something out if you're willing."

The moments ticked past, Bucky studying Steve, then he said, "Wait here."

Between one flash—literally, since Steve got a good view of Bucky's bare ass as he dived under the water—and the next, he was gone. Steve slopped out of the river and perched on the wall again, trying to ring some of the water out of his clothes.

Before long, a snort caught his attention. Bucky was back, horse-shaped once more, a bag caught between his teeth. With a flick of his head, he tossed it to Steve.

Steve caught it. It was a dry-bag, clear, filled with clothes and cash. "Is this a go bag?"

"What's a go bag?"

"It's an emergency stash so you can leave in a hurry."

"Then yes, it's a go bag."

Steve wasn't sure what to make of it, that Bucky was so prepared to run if he had to. Deliberately, he set the thought aside.

They made it to the patch of trees without being spotted and Bucky wordlessly offered Steve a share of his dry clothes. They were a tight fit, and Steve's shoes were soaked, but anything was better than trying to walk around in wet denim. His phone was fine, thanks to always being kept in a waterproof case—some things were just practical when you were half mer.

Even with dry clothes, they both had wet hair, smelled strangely metallic, and Steve's shoes squished alarmingly. The Uber driver kept giving them weird looks, but Steve promised him a good tip and he didn't say anything.

 

*   *   *

 

Bucky was quiet as he followed Steve up the stairs. It was only a few floors, his apartment at the back of the building, and it was a strange feeling to see Bucky standing in his living room. It felt like having a wild thing there, a piece of the water come to life.

He stood in the middle of the room, looking curiously at the art on the walls, some of it Steve's. At the couch and chairs and the table and the rugs. At the long shelves that ran down one wall that held books and driftwood and shells and a bowl of smooth rocks from the bottom of the sea.

The whole place was nothing but shades of blue and grey and green. Ocean colours. Steve hadn't even realised he'd done it until Clint had pointed it out one day.

"I like it," Bucky said as Steve peeled his sodden shoes off.

"You do?"

"I do."

"Would you like a shower?" Steve asked. "Get warm, get rid of the smell of the river. I'll loan you some clean clothes."

"Okay," Bucky said, and Steve showed him the bathroom and fetched him some clothes and left him to it.

While Bucky showered, Steve decided his shoes couldn’t be salvaged and chucked them in the trash. Then he wandered over to the shelves and ran his fingers through the stones, scooping them up and rolling them in his palm, trying to pull his thoughts together.

When Bucky came out, damp hair curling around his ears, dressed in Steve's old soft sweats and an oversized blue sweater, Steve finally got his question answered: yes, his heart could skip a beat. Several, it felt like. He also knew whatever it was he felt for Bucky didn't seem to give a damn that he was a kelpie. It did, however, like the idea of him standing in his living room, looking cuddly.

He let the stones trickle back into their bowl. "I'll just grab my own shower," he said. "Make yourself comfy. I'll be quick."

It was maybe the fastest, scrubbiest shower he'd ever had. He was surprised his skin wasn't bright red when he was done, but the metallic smell was gone. When he'd dragged sweats on over his still damp skin, and pulled on a shirt, he went out to find Bucky stirring a finger through the stones.

Looking just as cuddly as he had before.

He forced the thought down.

"Relaxing, aren't they?" Steve asked. "The stones."

Bucky nodded and pulled his hand away.

"Do you want something to drink? I could make hot chocolate if you're cold. Or…"

He trailed off because Bucky was walking towards him. "Steve." He stopped about a foot away, close enough Steve could smell his own shampoo. "I don't get cold in the water."

"Me neither."

"You brought me here because you wanted to talk to me."

"I did."

"You want to know if I've killed anyone."

Steve startled, because he hadn't been wondering that. He hadn't. Bucky had all but told him he'd killed Hydra, however many people that had been, and he still didn't care. Had told him Hydra had forced him to kill people for them, but the only person responsible for that was Hydra, and they'd paid the price.

He hadn't been wondering if Bucky had killed anyone since then, but there had to be a reason Bucky was bringing it up.

"I was thinking," Bucky went on, "in the shower, about what you could want to know. That's what I thought of."

Almost, Steve was lost for words. "Bucky." He had to stop, gather his thoughts, line them up like soldiers in their ranks. "There are so many things I want to know. You, you know that you're the next thing to a miracle, right?"

Bucky just stared at him.

"I guess you don't," he said under his breath, then straightened his shoulders. "That's not why I asked you to come back here with me, but yes, Bucky. I'd like to know if you've killed anyone since you escaped from Hydra."

"One."  

Steve felt strangely calm. "Can I ask why?"

Bucky's gaze was distant, tightening into anger. "One night a man came to the edge of my lake. Not here, it was a long way from here, not long after I escaped Them. He came to the edge of my lake, stinking of death and pain, with a knife and a child. There was blood, and the child's fear was bitter like yours, thick as fog." He met Steve's eyes. "He was going to hurt the child. I told the child to run, and I took the man and dragged him into my lake and ate him and now he'll never hurt anyone ever again."

It took every ounce of his training, every scrap of everything Natasha had ever taught him, not to react. To stop. To think. To work through Bucky unapologetically telling him he'd eaten someone.

 _He's a kelpie._ If Steve hadn't believed it before this, he'd believe it now. Except… No. It was still wrong. A kelpie, a true kelpie, would have taken them both. Wouldn't have cared about a child in danger. Would have been the danger the child needed to be kept safe from.

 _Would you care if Bucky had used a gun? If he'd left a body?_ Not if he'd shot someone to save a kid.

"Is that what you were going to do with Wirrn?"

Bucky looked at him blankly.

"By the lake that night, when you came out of the water and I told you to stop."

"No. I don't know what I was going to do with him. Scare him. Drag him through the river and strand him in a contaminated part. I don't know. I didn't think. There was no time. He was threatening you, and I needed to stop him."

"You were _protecting_ me," Steve said.

Bucky nodded.

"Why?"

"Because you're Steve." Bucky's eyes warmed and his face lit up. "Your smile's as bright as the sun and you shared it with me. You sat with me and you ate with me and you thought my lake was beautiful." His smile faded away. "But even if you hadn't been Steve, even if you hadn't been all those things, I still would have done it because I wasn't going to swim past and let someone be hurt."  

It left Steve a bit stunned. He took a deep breath, weighed himself and his feelings, and realised he meant this. "What you did, with the man who was hurting that kid, I can't say I wouldn't have been tempted to do the same thing, the drowning, not the, uh, eating, but I need to know you won't do it again."

Bucky's eyes were fathomless, drawing him down and down. "No."

"Bucky—"

"No. If there's no other way to stop someone from being hurt, from being killed, then I'll make the same choice. I don't want to. I never want to. I'll do everything I can to find another way—and I know more about the world now, I know some humans will protect other humans, I know there's other ways—but if there are none…"

"If there are none then you'll make that choice, even if you don't want to," Steve finished for him.

"Yes."

He bowed his head and closed his eyes, overwhelmed, because, if you left out the eating, it was an echo of what lived in his own heart. But he'd been raised by a mother who loved him, had a father who loved him even if he'd had to leave, and they'd both taught him to stand up for what he believed in. They'd both taught him to _stand up_ , for himself and for everyone who couldn't. No one had taught Bucky. Hydra sure as hell wouldn't have been giving him life lessons in protecting people. Bucky had taught _himself_. He'd created himself from something that shouldn't even be able to _think_ and Steve almost couldn’t breathe with the wonder of it.

"Steve? Do you want me to leave?"

"No, Bucky." He reached out, fumbled for Bucky's hand, caught it and squeezed gently, felt Bucky's fingers close around his. "No, I don't want you to leave."

"There's still things you want to know."

"I just don't want you to leave." He opened his eyes and smiled as gently as he knew how, wrestling his feelings back under control. "I mean yes, I still want to talk to you, but mostly I just want you to stay."

"I'd like to stay."

 "Come sit down?" He gave the gentlest tug and Bucky followed him to the couch, curling up next to him with his feet tucked under him. He didn't let go of Steve's hand.

Steve gave himself a minute to let everything settle while Bucky watched him with patient eyes, the same way he'd waited patiently after Steve had hauled himself onto his back. "Tonight, before you showed up, I was talking to a woman."

"I know."

"You know, huh?"

"I was listening. Before she left."

"Hmm."

"What?"

He made sure his tone was light, teasing, when he said, "It's rude to listen in on other people's conversations."

"Even when you were talking about me?"

Steve rubbed his thumb over Bucky's. "Maybe that's a grey area. What I'm wondering about is, she was pretty clear that you've been taking a bunch of people on rides?"

"Yes."

"Yes. That doesn't tell me a lot."

"You didn't ask anything else." Steve laughed softly and Bucky curled his hand a little tighter around Steve's. "You want to know why."

"I'm curious."

"Because they like to be scared and the way they feel, a little fear and a lot of excitement, it all gets mixed up together, and I can feel it in here." Bucky pressed a hand against his chest. "It's like food, like water. I always keep them safe, I always make sure they don't get hurt. It's always their choice."

"How long have you been doing that?"

"As long as I've been here. Do you want to know something else?"

"Tell me."

"It was best with you."

"Because you could go underwater, you mean."

"No, because you were the best. Because what I felt from you was the sweetest, joy with no fear, even if you're stupid. Telling me to show you what I've got, like you'd be safe from a kelpie just because you can't drown." Bucky's sudden scowl was worryingly adorable.

"Sorry," he said.

"I don't think you are."

"No, you're probably right, because I was safe with you."

"You didn't know that."

"Didn't I?"

Bucky gave a disgruntled little huff.

Steve leaned closer to push an errant bit of hair behind Bucky's ear and didn't move when Bucky lifted a hand and brushed it down his neck.

"Where do they go?"

"They disappear when I don't need them." He held out his arm. "Same with the fins."

Bucky traced a line down his forearm and Steve barely kept himself from shivering. "They were beautiful," he said, drawing the outline of scales he couldn't see. "Why do you have them?"

"My mom was human, but my dad was merfolk." Bucky lifted his head, a question in his eyes. "Mermaids, most people call them," Bucky nodded, "but most people also think they don't exist, just like they don't think kelpies exist. I inherited them from him."  

While Bucky kept running his fingers up and down Steve's forearm in ever more intricate patterns, Steve forced himself to think. To plan. There had to be a way to get Shield to abandon their kelpie hunt. To make sure Bucky was safe. However lucky he'd been to this point, it couldn't last, and no kelpie-hunting Shield agent who came face to face with the black horse was going to pause before taking a shot.

 _Maybe…yeah, I think that would work._ It'd mean putting an awful lot of faith in one person, but sometimes that's what you had to do.

"Bucky?"

"Steve?"

It was worrying how much he liked hearing Bucky say his name. "I'm something else as well. I sometimes work for an organisation called Shield. They're," how did he explain them, "think of them like the opposite of Hydra. They're humans who want to protect other humans. That's what I was doing with Wirrn. He's a bad guy, Shield's been trying to catch him for a while."

"They let you go after him alone, so he could threaten you. So he could hurt you."

"They didn't exactly know," he admitted. There was that adorable scowl again. "I had a plan! I was going to lure him into the water, where I'm stronger than him."  

Bucky curled his hand around Steve's forearm. "You weren't in any danger?"

"Probably not. But you made things a lot easier."

"I didn't mean to scare you."

"I know." He briefly folded his arm around Bucky's shoulders and gave him a quick hug, Bucky leaning into him with a little sigh. "The part of Shield I work for, the people I work with, they know things like merfolk and kelpies are real. The rest of it, they're like most of the rest of everyone else. They've got no idea."

Bucky searched his face. "That's who's at my lake, isn't it? They're hunting for me. They think they have to protect people from me."

"Yeah."

"I'll have to leave."  

"Do you want to?"

"No, I'm happy here. My lake is here, my river. You're here. But I need to go."

"Bucky." Steve held tight to his hand, gently caught his other one. "What if you didn't have to?"

"They're _hunting_ me."

"No, they're hunting for a kelpie."

"I am—"

"No, I know. That's not what I meant. I mean they're hunting for a, a standard kelpie. One that's not you. But you are you, and they're not looking for anyone like you. I don't think there's anyone like you in the whole world."

It got him a tiny smile.

"So what if you stayed. What if you stayed. Here. With me."

"And never go back to my lake?" Bucky asked, sadness in his eyes as deep as the ocean. "With people thinking there's danger forever?"

He rubbed his thumb over Bucky's knuckles in a gentle sweep. "I might have an idea about that."

 

*   *   *

 

After Steve explained his plan to Bucky—who agreed to try it, even if he seemed a little unsure—he gave Bucky his bed to sleep in. Steve could set up on the couch just fine. From the way Bucky wriggled around before finally curling up under a pile of blankets and pillows, Steve wondered if it was the first time he'd ever slept in one.

He tried to leave, but Bucky had a death grip on his hand, tight enough he wondered if it was kelpie magic holding him fast. In the end, he stretched out next to the blanket pile and fell asleep to the muffled sound of Bucky's breathing.

He woke up to the same sound, louder and closer, Bucky with the blankets shaken off, curved in a half-circle with his head on Steve's stomach, nose pressed against his ribs, hands jammed under Steve's hip. He was beautiful with the light spreading across him, his hair a messy fall over his face, and Steve couldn't quite help reaching down to run his fingers through it. It was soft, each strand silky, and he let his hand rest on Bucky's shoulder.

"I like this," Bucky murmured without opening his eyes.

"Me too."

Bucky moved his hands so they were resting on Steve's hip instead of jammed up under it and Steve covered them with his own.

"Are you sure this will work?" Bucky asked, wrapping his fingers around Steve's.

"No." Just like Bucky had said he'd never hurt him, Steve didn't ever want to lie to him. "But if it goes wrong, I won't let you get hurt. I'll help you run."

Bucky opened his eyes, the blue-grey catching Steve and holding him. "You could come with me?"

For one moment, he considered it: leaving everything behind and running—riding?—off into the sunset with Bucky. The two of them travelling the world from ocean to lake and back again. Nothing but pure, clear water, not the mostly-clean-except-on-some-days waters that surrounded New York. It was beautiful and glorious, rising like a warm tidal swell, but then he shook his head. "I can't."

Maybe he was only a consultant to Shield, but most of the time when they needed him, they really needed him. He couldn’t walk away from that.

"I know." Bucky curled closer, nuzzling his nose against Steve's sternum and closed his eyes.

He checked the clock. Another hour before he'd text Natasha. As much as she liked to pretend she was entirely above human foibles, and as successful as she was at convincing other people, Steve had been on missions with her. He'd spent _weeks_ with her. He'd had to put up with her falling asleep across his lap while he kept watch, threatening him if he tried to move her. He knew that before coffee she was an angry badger who was not to be trifled with.

So he'd wait another hour. And if that left him more time to curl up around Bucky and hold onto him, all the better.

 

*   *   *

 

The text Steve sent was this: _Can you come and see me at my place before work? Just you._

The text she replied with was: _Why? And make it good, I'm still on my first cup of coffee and I have to go to a budget committee meeting today that they've specifically banned me bringing knives to._

However true, he probably shouldn't have sent back: _I ran into the kelpie last night._

Twenty minutes later she responded with, "What the hell, Steve?", walking in without knocking.  

He wasn't surprised; she had her own key.

Bucky flinched a little, sitting next to him on the couch, and Steve ran a hand down his thigh, gentle, reassuring. "Hey, it's okay. She's who we're waiting for."

The look he got back was doubtful, but Bucky relaxed under his touch. It did something to his heart, riptide feelings waiting to drag him down. They were as impossible as the reality of Bucky himself, but if something was true it wasn't impossible.  He knew he'd read that somewhere. And Bucky was true and real, just like the feelings creeping soft-footed around his heart.

Just as real as Natasha, who was staring down at him. "Steve," she said impatiently, glancing between him and Bucky.

He cleared his throat. "Right. Sorry." He took a deep breath and opted for ripping the band-aid straight off. "I know where the kelpie is."

He only saw her react because he'd known her for so long. Slight widening of the eyes, a glance at Bucky. "What are you talking about?"

"It's okay, Nat." It probably wasn't going to be okay, not right away, but he held tight to his belief that it would be. "This is Bucky. You remember, from the boat rental place in Prospect Park? He's the kelpie. Bucky, this is Natasha."

Bucky said, "Hi."

Natasha stared at Steve. It felt a little like she was flaying him alive. Then she turned her gaze on Bucky.

"Steve's not lying," she said conversationally, which was rarely a good sign. "I can always tell when he's lying, and he's not doing it now. But that doesn't mean he's telling the truth. It just means he believes you." She smiled, wide, which was always a bad sign. "And I want to know what you did to make that happen."

"Nat. Nat." He was up and on his feet and gently touching her arm. " _Natasha_. It's the truth."

"Steve, it's not. I don't know how he convinced you, but it's not. You know that. You _know_. I get that you had a crush on him, but that doesn't mean you suddenly start believing every impossible thing he tells you."

"I can show her," Bucky said.

Steve whirled to face Bucky. "No. You don't have to show her anything. You're not a, a performing animal. You don't have to do tricks to prove what you are."

"Because he can't. He can't prove what you're saying, Steve. It's not possible." She narrowed her eyes at him. "He doesn't even sound Scottish."

"I think I do need to show her." Bucky stood and when Natasha backed up a step, hand dropping to her hip, he went still. "It's like the night by the lake. She wants you to be safe. She thinks I'm going to hurt you, like I thought Wirrn was going to hurt you. I didn't know you had a plan, that you were luring him into the water where you'd be stronger than him. I thought I had to do something to protect you, so you'd be safe. I was wrong, but I didn't know that. This is like that." He lifted his gaze to look past Steve, speaking directly to Natasha. "Isn't it?"

She didn't reply but she didn't have to. Steve knew Bucky was right. "Yeah, Bucky. It is."

"Then I'll show her, and she'll know." Humour darted through Bucky's eyes, hummed in his voice. "But I'm not sure it'll convince her you're safe." 

He couldn’t help smiling. "Guess I'll have to do that, then." It faded. "Can you even change out of the water?"

"I can change anywhere. They taught me that."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Okay. Nat, come on. Back up a bit." He drew her away and she let him, obviously happy to have extra space between him and Bucky. "Don't shoot him. Promise me."

"Do you really think I'm going to make a promise like that?"

No, he didn't. "Don't shoot him unless he attacks you, then."

"This is insane, Steve."

He had to laugh. "Not arguing with you, there." Bucky was skimming out of his sweater. "He's about to get naked," he warned but she just _looked_ at him.

Bucky wasn't naked for long. He stood, digging his toes into the carpet for about thirty seconds, then dissolved into the black horse. In the daylight, in the bright lights of the apartment, away from the water, it was deeply strange.

"Nat?"

"There's horse shifters. Not many, but they're out there."

Bucky lifted one hoof, then the other, looking at Steve. Obviously asking.

"If you're willing, Buck. Otherwise, no. We'll figure something else out."

Seconds ticked past like moments in the eye of the storm, then Bucky's head jerked and he twisted, kept twisting, shifting from smallish black horse to demented equine nightmare.

In daylight, under the bright lights, it was horrifying. Neck too long, hooves too sharp, head split wide all the way to the neck to reveal a mouth filled with sharp, crooked fangs. His body was skinny, bones pushing against a coat like an oil slick, as if the slightest touch would split the skin and they'd burst right through.

He looked like death, like something Pestilence would ride, like nothing that belonged in this world. Steve's eyes tried to rebel, to slip away. Maybe they would have succeeded, except for the way Bucky was standing, head pulled down against his bony chest, razor-sharp hooves tucked underneath him, the fungus-glow in his hollow eyes fixed on the ground.

This shape of Bucky's was one of the most threatening things Steve had ever seen, and Bucky was trying so hard to make himself harmless.

Natasha had a gun in her hands. Steve said, "Natasha, don't," and it stayed pointed at the ground. "Can he change back?" he asked, keeping his gaze locked on Bucky.

"I'd prefer it."

 

*   *   *

 

Bucky gratefully let go of the eating shape, folding back down into human.

Steve hadn't been afraid. Natasha's fear had been acrid and heavy in the air, even if it had faded, but Steve. He'd seen Bucky's eating shape with no darkness to soften it and he hadn't been afraid.

Bucky wanted to curl around him, the way Steve had curled around him this morning, and possibly, maybe, never let go.

But they still didn't know if he'd even be able to stay.

Natasha had put away her gun and was talking with Steve while Bucky got dressed, so he sat on the couch again, waiting for them to finish.

It took them twenty minutes, maybe more, hushed voices and emphatic gestures, but when they did Steve came and crouched in front of him and wrapped his warm hands around Bucky's knees.

"Bucky? Do you think you can tell her about Hydra?"

He didn't want to. He didn't want to think about Them, but Steve was asking, watching him like it was important. He tugged Steve up to sit next to him, so he could lean on him, a bulwark against memories he didn't enjoy, settled both feet firmly on the floor, and told her.

The oldest parts were muddy, barely there at all. He hadn't been a _who_ then, but he did his best. He told her about watching, learning, wondering. About asking, "Why?" and what They'd done to him for it. He gave her everything he could, everything he knew. He was surprised at how much there was, drawn out by her careful questions, and the memories towards the end were clear and vivid.

He had to stop a few times, when Steve made small noises. Distressed. Upset. He had to check and make sure nothing had hurt him, but he seemed fine. Fiercely pleased, at the end, when he told her about saying, "No," and the killing that had come after.

She seemed pleased, too. Satisfied. "That clears some things up," she said. "We never could figure out why they just dropped off the radar. No one thought it was because they were dead."

"Nat?" Steve said. "What do you think? Not about Hydra, about Bucky."

"I have no idea. I don't understand how it's possible. If you'd asked me, I would have said it wasn't." She looked him up and down. "But there he is."

Bucky smiled at her and after a moment she gave him one back.

"What do we do? He's a kelpie, but he's not, we can't just hand him over to get locked up and turned into a lab rat, or let him get killed, and I don't," Steve wrapped his arm around him, and Bucky nestled against his side, "I don't want him to have to run."

Natasha slowly smiled, looking between them, and she seemed deeply amused. "You know what I'm thinking right now, don't you?"

Steve looked pained. "I know."

"I'm not saying it, though. I want you to remember I didn't say it."

Steve hung his head. "I'll remember."

Bucky had no idea what they were talking about. "Natasha?"

For a moment, she almost seemed startled. "Yes?"

"I don't want to leave. I don't want to leave Steve, and I don't want to leave my lake, and I don't want your people thinking there's a danger."

"No," she agreed.

"Can you help?"

Steve was watching him, good watching, proud watching.

She considered him thoughtfully, then said to Steve, "He's obviously not a kelpie."

Bucky frowned, opened his mouth to protest, but Steve squeezed his hand. "Trust us," he said, then to Natasha, "That's what I was starting to wonder."   

"I can see why you thought he was," she went on, "but you made a mistake. Do you know how many forms I'm going to have to fill out?"

"Sorry, Nat."

"Wait until I make you help."

"But—" Bucky said, and Natasha cut him off.

"Everyone knows what kelpies are. They aren't this," she waved a hand at him, tucked up under Steve's arm, "and that means you can't be a kelpie. You're obviously a shifter with a lousy sense of humour. It's simple. Shield likes simple." 

" _Oh_ ," Bucky said, understanding dawning.

"But," she said, leaning forward, every inch of her suddenly a predator, "I'll be keeping an eye on you. If you step out of line, if you hurt someone. If you hurt Steve. I know how to kill you."

"Good."

"How is that good?" 

"If I come across someone who's hurting people, I can bring them to you to deal with."

Steve grinned as Nat's face went completely blank. "You're supposed to be intimidated," he whispered to Bucky.

"Sorry?" Bucky offered. "It if helps you _are_ scary."     

Natasha rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. "Only you, Steve. Only you could find a kelpie and have him be this."

Steve cleared his throat. "If he was a kelpie. Which he's not."

"Of course." She stretched to her feet. "I'm leaving before you find anything else that's not something and I have to deal with it."

Steve gave Bucky a squeeze then stood as well, reaching out to hug her. "Nat. Thank you."

"You're lucky I like you," she told him and kissed his cheek.

"I know."

She shut the door behind her, and Steve sat back down, turning to face him. "Now you don't have to leave. In a few days you can go back to your lake. You'll be safe."

"You said you wanted that."

"I do." Steve reached out to trace the line of his cheek, sliding his fingers down to cradle his jaw. "You can still go. I won't try and stop you."

"No. I want to stay. I want to stay here, with you. I want to take you on more rides. I want to know _you're_ safe. I want…" He leaned into Steve's touch, thinking about it. New, unexpected. _Yes._ "I want to do something."

"Go ahead."

He'd only ever seen it done, never done it himself, so he took some time to line it up in his head, make sure he had it right—the thrum of anticipation, heart beating faster, skin tingling, surprised him—before he leaned forward and kissed Steve.

He squawked in surprise and Bucky laughed against his mouth, because he sounded like the ducks at his lake, but then Steve wrapped his other arm around him and held him close and kissed him back, soft and sweet, and when Bucky leaned back Steve was watching him. The good watching. The kind that made him feel alive and warm and filled with light.

 


	4. A tropical beach, one year later

Bucky surged up out of the night-dark ocean, hooves kicking up white sand, and the man Clint and Natasha were chasing screeched to a halt, bolted back the way he'd come, and threw himself behind Clint to hide.

Clint grabbed him with one hand and barked out a laugh. "Good job, thanks!"

Bucky tossed his head and snorted.

The man Clint was hanging onto gaped up at him in disbelief. "You've got a kelpie?? Shield's got a fucking _kelpie_?! You're supposed to be the good guys!"

"Don't be silly," Natasha said, deftly handcuffing him. "That's not a kelpie."

"Since we're the good guys, that makes you the bad guy, huh?" Steve called as he walked out of the ocean next to Bucky, moonlight gleaming off the iridescent scales chasing across his skin. He held up a bag, its pale gold contents glittering and gleaming. "You must be, since you were smuggling this." He offered it to Bucky. "What do you think?"

Bucky sniffed it delicately, eyes sparking with an angry glow.

"Yeah, it's pixie dust. There's at least twenty bags of it down there," he said to Natasha. "Want us to get it?"

"I'd appreciate it."

Steve handed her the bag, then slipped onto Bucky's back and they disappeared under the waves.

"That's a _kelpie_ ," the man in cuffs hissed. "I've been to Scotland, I know a fucking kelpie when I see one."

"My friend," Clint said. "No, hang on, you're not my friend. You're smuggling pixie dust. That means you're an asshole. But the point I was making stands. If that was a kelpie, we'd all be dead by now."

"But—"

Clint smiled and bent down to stare at him from about an inch in front of his face. "If you want, when they get back, I can get you real close and you can test your theory."

"No!" he yelped, trying to scramble away. "No thanks. That's fine. No kelpie. I was wrong. I'll stay right here with you in these nice safe handcuffs."

"That's what I thought."

 

*   *   *

 

The water surrounding them was warm and clear and pure, and even at night they could both see the coral reefs and white sand below. Steve slipped off Bucky's back, waiting, and soon Bucky was smiling at him, naked and beautiful, both of them where they belonged.

There was a drum filled with bags of pixie dust a mile or so away and a long way down, but stopping people from getting hurt was as much a part of where they belonged as the water and the waves and each other—and the hurt that that much pixie dust would do to unsuspecting humans was considerable.

It was why Bucky had asked about helping Steve with what he did for Shield: he didn't like people being hurt. Steve hadn't been sure how Nat would react, but she'd been willing to try, and it hadn't taken long for willing-to-try to become happy-she-did.

Natasha had known the truth about Bucky. So had Clint, eventually, even if some days Steve was half-convinced Clint was just humouring them. Everyone else… The few people on their side of Shield who'd met Bucky assumed he was some kind of messed-up mix of shifter, mer, and human (and no one ever saw his other shape, the one Bucky called his eating shape).

Exactly one person had made a kelpie joke. Steve had never been prouder than when Bucky had responded, deadpan, "Do I sound Scottish?"

A year together, seven months as partners when Shield needed them, and Steve knew he'd never been happier. He grinned as Bucky trailed his fingers along his fins to make him shiver, then reached out to pull him into a kiss. Joy was radiating off Bucky, so strong it felt like sun against his skin, and Steve wrapped his arms around him and let go, pouring himself into the kiss, and it was good and glorious and _right_. 

 

 


End file.
